Love and Liminality in Past Lives
A short analysis of Celine Song's Past Lives. Not a movie review.
Celine Song’s Past Lives opens with a shot of three people sitting at the bar. Two Koreans, a man and a woman. And one American man. Presumably in their late 30s. People off-screen speculate as to the nature of their relationship, which is admittedly tricky to fathom. Then the woman stares with an unbroken gaze into the camera and we are taken to a narrative that will eventually help us piece together their connection to each other.
Past Lives is as much a romantic drama as it is an immigrant story. And neither takes precedence over the other. The movie is divided into three acts. In the first act set in South Korea, we see two pre-teen children, out on a date chaperoned by their mothers. Na Young will soon adopt the English name, Nora and move to Canada with her parents. Hae Sung is unaware. The story spans a period of over two decades, where they connect briefly in their 20s only to fall out of touch for 12 years again.
When they reconnect virtually in their 20s, there is a sense of genuine affection and warmth towards each other that radiate through their interactions. Discussions of the mundane and the exciting. Despite the decade long break, they pick up almost where they left. He becomes her outlet, a familiar place in the midst of her second migration from Toronto to New York. Nora enjoys the affection that she receives from him. She recommends him movies. In one scene, we see Hue Sang poring over his laptop watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, set in Montauk. In their 20s, they are perhaps bound most by their cultural identities and Nora’s longing for the past. But practical exigencies prevail. Nora is acutely aware of the transitional phase that her life is going through. She is an aspiring playwright, who is going for a residency. In Montauk. Between the significantly different time zones and a relationship punctuated by the tone of missed Skype calls, it seems wiser to take a break. To stop talking. Travel is not an option for either of them in the short term. Of course, there is heartbreak. But where does it stem from?
There is a beautiful exploration of liminality in Past Lives. Spaces of transition, both physical and psychological. In anthropology, liminality refers to the ambiguity that arises from being in a state of transition. It is a fertile space for transformation but chaotic by its very nature. Disorienting. Liminal spaces are placed at the threshold of the formation of something new and the rejection of the past self. It is this state that the film inhabits. Quiet, and understated but seething with internal turmoil. There’s an underlying current of anxiety which runs through all conversations and interactions. When they meet in their 20s, both Nora and Hue Sang are precariously perched in their own transitional phases, with no certainty about the future. Hue Sang seems ambition-less. A very Murakami-esque protagonist.
Maybe it is because they meet in this space that their bond feels stronger than it actually is. As an immigrant child, Nora is searching for her severed connection to the past, for roots, for permanence. There’s an extra layer of liminality for Nora, that of space. Between her homeland and her adopted country, never fully integrated in either place. She’s plagued by intermittent feelings of confusion and ambivalence, and some past regret of having moved out. Hue Sang opens her up to the possibilities of the past. He is looking for the Na Young he knew in Nora. There is an idealised infatuation with a similar intensity from both ends. Or maybe more. There is no binary distinction between infatuation and love. When does like turn to love? There’s no chasm one can jump over in a day. It is a spectrum. There are phases you have to invariably go through. It is incredibly difficult and unlikely for two people to be in the exact same phase. It does get easier when this transition is complete but these liminal spaces in love leave you full of either ecstasy or despair. And the outcome is never certain.
There’s a very romantic Korean concept of In-yun that the movie talks about. The closest English translation would be providence or fate. It means, more or less, the ties between people over the course of their current and past lives. Every encounter with someone is in-yun but it takes 8000 layers of in-yun for two people to be together in a lifetime. They didn’t have that. Nora finds that with Arthur, a Jewish writer she meets at her residency.
Apart from the temporal spaces, the physical spaces that the film inhabits also convey movement and transition. Spaces where you are in a constant state of flux. A lot of the film is set in trains, ferries, parks, restaurants and bars. Even when Nora and Hue Sang show first signs of a budding romance as children, holding hands, it happens in the back of a moving car. All these spaces and markers of movement act as reminders of what all has been left behind. Another interesting visual choice that Song makes is that of using frames within frames. It brings to mind the feeling of looking in as an outsider. Lots of shots are framed from doorways or windows. The first time we see Arthur is also from behind a window.
Over a decade later, Hue travels all the way to New York to see Nora, not to woo her but just to see and meet her. Almost like a pilgrimage he is obliged to undertake. Nora hugs him tightly but he’s unaware what to do with his hands. The stoic restraint practiced by Hae Sung brings to mind Tony Leung’s character from In the Mood for Love. He wears his heart on his sleeve. His gaze occasionally betray a longing that his actions do not. All of their interactions take place in liminal spaces. Much of the conversation happens while walking around the city or riding trains and ferries. We see them behind the windows in the ferry or the doorway in the trains. There’s a shot in the train where their hands are on the same pole, very close and parallel to each other but not quite touching. Much like their lives.
Hue Sung cannot shed the baggage of idealism, as is observed by Nora too. He is man who lives his life, almost entirely in imagination. It is also worth noting that while Nora is an artist, she is intensely pragmatic in all matters related to her personal relationships. Borderline cold even. Hae Sung is the exact opposite. Would he have such a romanticised version of Nora in his head had she stayed back? Would they still have been dating? Or married? Would it have seemed as intense and long-lasting it were…easy? It is easy to build up something in your head that is not quite real. The more you love a memory, the stranger and stronger it becomes1. All the what-ifs come to form an almost perfect conclusion in your head. But the fairytale ending does not end with a full stop. There’s so much more that follows that end.
Arthur is quite possibly better equipped to handle what follows. As a writer, however, he’s is quick to note the irresistible pull that Nora and Hae Sung’s story has. A childhood love story that defies odds At one point, he remarks that he would be the evil American in their love story. In a very tender pillow talk scene (some of which is shot through a doorway, giving the viewer an almost voyeuristic feeling), Arthur lays to fore his insecurities. He fears that Nora would leave him for Hae Sung. That she dreams in Korean, That there’s a place inside of her heart where he cannot reach in the way that Hae Sung can. It is in these quiet, intimate moments that the film reveals the most about its characters. There are no grandiose declarations of love. Just very real conversations which leave you devastated. We circle back to the bar scene where we know now how these people are connected. Nora and Hae Sung continue to chat away in Korean. She attempts to translate some of it for Arthur but gives up on it after a point. Hae Sung even apologizes to Arthur for making him feel excluded and expresses a grudging admiration about him to Nora.
It is only after Hae Sung leaves in his cab that Nora’s veneer slips and she starts crying. We were babies, she remarked to Hae Sung once about their interactions in their childhood and their 20s. The transition phase is over. The most poignant statement that the film makes is about the ache of saying goodbye to infinite possibilities, grieving about the forked roads you could taken and the lives you could have lived. While in-yun plays an important role in the film’s narrative, it also serves to underline that perhaps the choices that people make have a bigger role in determining how things turn out. Arthur is the tangible proof of the choices she made after moving to Canada and subsequently, America. Maybe Hae Sung and Nora would see each other in their next lives. Quizas quizas quizzes.
“Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again”.
Vladimir Nabokov.